Online Shopping Suggestion
It's fast approaching that time of year where I'm spending triple-digit sums on crap that people will look at once and then hide in the cupboard until they can find someone else to give it to. I actually quite enjoy spending money on people though, so it's no big deal.
One thing that does annoy me every year though, is badly designed e-commerce sites. I mean, things have come on in recent years... search features tend to actually work, and products are given various tags and categories. One of my favourite features, seen on the likes of Amazon, Play.com and Boots.com is the ability to narrow down search results or general browsing by clicking on listed categories, price bands, etc.
Unfortunately, what they don't ever seem to offer is a way to exclude these general sort options. For example, I'm looking on Boots.com for a gift for Anna, and she's in to girly stuff. I'm looking under "Offers > 3 for 2 Mix & Match on selected Toys & Gifts", but I want to exclude Toys without having to select one of the other categories. I can't, which means I'm stuck browsing through page after page of plastic crappy children's toys.
Of course, the people that need to read this, won't. And I'll be here, same time next year, ranting about exactly the same thing...
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On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 00:55, Marie said:
I know of one site that has that option (I forget, only saw it once -_-). You can search something like "Boots" then narrow it down by colors, height, heels, brands, terms, and price range. It's sort of general, but I was able to find a specific type of shoe quite easily. It was laggy though </3. Good idea however, it did the job just right. I even went to see if it missed any shoes of the same category and it didn't.
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 01:41, Diana said:
I don't mind spending money on people I am close to either. What else is my money going to be used for?
That stinks about your experience
Crappy e-commerce sites, booo-urns.
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 02:07, Mimi said:
I was just thinking about how crappy Walmart.com looks while looking for a present. It's so small and narrow, you would think the evil empire known as Walmart would at least have a good design??
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 02:18, Tara said:
Hmmm... I thought there was some way to contact the Amazon developers and suggest features like that. I guess I was wrong.
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 05:24, Vera said:
That's exactly why I like to browse shops the old-fashioned way. Just regularly go around and turn everything upside that till I find something nice.
Hah! People I give presents wouldn't dare do that. I tend to glare at them till they... ugh... like the presents
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 08:47, Mumblies said:
Bah humbug!
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 15:50, Minmin said:
Ah, I buy almost everything online but I really can't recall any with great navigation. But if you want to shop girly stuff go to asos.com.
On Wed 19th Nov 2008 @ 20:15, Roxanne said:
Agree with Vera, I'm old fashioned and like to shop around. It's also fun to walk around and see what other people are buying, sometimes gives me ideas on what to get!
Going back to the topic, BestBuy's search option is a little wacky itself. Once I was search through price ranges for a camera and put in $100-$300 dollar scale and cameras ranging to $700 popped up. I was thinking, well what's the point in the search option if you're going to show me higher prices regardless?
On Sun 23rd Nov 2008 @ 09:34, Courtney said:
I hate hate hate bad retail sites. There's a few that don't show ANY of their products online. What's the point?? I want to be able to see what I can find at the store so I know if it's worth my time going! Rargh.